It’s fun, I’ll give it that. Explosions, killing, terrorists, all a late primary/early secondary student could want, though I still don’t get why its rated 11+, my 8 year old brother could read it and not be scarred (mind you, he is a bit of a killing obsessed freak). Still, there’s a lot more for against it than for it. It’s against the Taliban, portraying them as all being evil terrorists, its basic in its plot line, and in the end things turn out pretty much exactly as you’d suspect, but don’t let me tell you, here’s the basic plot outline in case you’re looking for an easy read.

Basically, as you’d expect, the story mainly focuses around a fourteen year old boy (that magic age, it seems to me every writer uses it). Ben’s volunteered for this exchange program to Pakistan, along with the basic stereotypical school group, along with the usual class bully. He’s assigned to a Muslim family, with a Pakistan girl named Aarya who, naturally you can sense a relationship growing between the two. After some Taliban sympathizing bullies steal Aarya’s books Ben decides that things weren’t right and heroically sets off to get them back.

Nearing the house, the two teenagers spot a car of terrorists charging down the road, right to the bully’s house, and so Ben and Aarya are caught and transported across the nation to Afghanistan as part of a deadly terrorist plot.

Ok, I’ll think I’ll stop there so I don’t give too much away, but at the same time throughout the story we find his mother is in danger too, inside a constantly and viciously attacked military base, plus in the direct line of damage from the terrorist plot to win the war for the Taliban.

The whole thing is incredibly single sided. There isn’t a single Taliban soldier with any amount of good in their hearts; there isn’t single English soldier with any amount f evil in their hearts, plus he’s managed to make Ben into the perfect fourteen year old, infinitely brave, infinitively smart and a stud with chatting up Aarya. To me, I see the whole thing as one big advertisement for the army, sending across the message ‘join the army, the Taliban are evil, we must kill them’. Of course it’s fairly understandable seeing as Chris Ryan was in the SAS and has gone through the regular army brainwashing. Still, like I said before, it’s a nice easy read, as long as you don’t take it too literally.